The 1978 release of Space Invaders caused a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan.

the verdict

REFUTED

the evidence says no

Recorded sources

0 sources for · 1 against

Counts group repeated records of the same source within each side. They do not measure evidence strength or source independence.

Is it true that the 1978 release of Space Invaders caused a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan?

No. A Wikipedia article on Space Invaders reports that numismatists living in Japan at the time saw 'nothing out of the ordinary' around the game's release, and that numismatist Mark Fox compared Japan Mint production outputs with the game's reported earnings and concluded the game's impact did not change the outputs, attributing the story to a myth.

Verdict: REFUTED · 0 sources for, 1 against · Last checked 3 Oct 2026

The private library was unavailable for some searches in this check. Missing library results are not evidence against the claim.

Evidence against · 1

Space Invaders

Get citation

Space Invaders. (n.d.). en.wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Invaders

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